Freya & Us

What a fantastic day we had exploring Monemvasia! Stunningly beautiful, really different, interesting - and views. Monemvasia is a lump of rock attached to the village of Yefira by a causeway. The medieval village of Monemvasia is completely hidden from the land on the other side of the rock and is completely fortified so that you walk along the causeway and around the rock and when you get there can still only see a gateway in a castle wall. Inside it's a magical old town full of very pretty twisting, narrow streets and cobbles. This bit is quite touristy now but being April wasn't too bad. After coffee with a fantastic view over the tiled roofs and out to sea we kept going up...... and up, very slippery cobbles to the upper town which is still in ruins apart from the church of Agia Sophia. Again, amazing views of the village below and out to sea. Onwards and upwards you come to the ruined castle at the top of the rock with 360 degree views of the coast. The walk up was rocky in places but through wonderful spring flowers. The climb down was very slippery on the well worn shiny rocks but we made it and found a lovely lunch in the shade with - yes, stunning views. After a bit more exploring and walking out to the lighthouse we went home exhausted. Great day.

After a trip to the supermarket we headed off again. This time 8 miles to Yerakas, a tiny fishing village up a creek leading to a shallow lagoon. The entrance to the creek is impossible to see from the sea and it appears that you're heading for a wall of rock but as you turn the corner you enter the creek with high cliffs on both sides, and around another corner is the pretty village with a quay at one end, a few tavernas and a row of fishing boats. We moored on the old ferry quay which we had to ourselves. Going to explore later we were told that the Mycean Acropolis of Xanax was just a 15 minute walk above the village. Another rocky walk, this time booby trapped by spiders building their webs across the path between the spring flowers only to catch us rather than their dinner, until we found the acropolis in a very impressive spot on the cliff tops. It had clearly been a huge site but was difficult to imagine as it was so overgrown. Still very interesting though - we love a good pile of old stones! And then back down through the gauntlet of spiders to a beer and fish cooked on the quay in the Cobb bbq - again very successful. Another great day.

Out next night's mooring wasn't as successful! We motored to Kyparissi, a really pretty, very Greek tiny village nestled at the bottom of the mountains full of white houses with blue shutters and terracotta roofs. We had been told not to moor on the town quay as it had little shelter but to go to one on the north of the bay. But it was so pretty and the weather so settled we couldn't resist. We were sure it would be fine! But the invisible swell built up overnight causing us to roll around and our lines to snatch - not much sleep that night - but it was very pretty!

The next morning we weren't sorry to move on early though! And we sailed! Properly, with both sails and no engine! Not quite in the right direction of course, and so lots of tacking involved, but it was fun for a couple of hours until the wind dropped and the engine came back on - but at least we could go in the right direction which was to Leonidhion 15 miles away.

The link to our map seems to be stopping people leaving comments on the blog, so I've removed it from these posts for now. I will be keeping it up to date so simply go to one of the special map only posts and click the link there to see it